Posted by Bruce in Sechelt on Sunday, January 23, 2005 at 9:21PM :
I had to take my daughter out for some stuff last evening. So I got to put in 3 hours on the WC 53 while I waited for her. I managed to modify some punches and while looking through my personal junk pile I found the perfect guage metal to make the plugs .I think it was 16 guage hot rolled. The hot rolled is thicker than the cold rolled. I had some cold rolled steel and found it to be thinner. I removed the scale before tig welding in a few plugs and it worked great.
But man was I having a tough time with welding . No matter how I positioned my head I could not stay focused and see through my tri focals . I made some beautuful welds about 3 millimeters away from where I was suposed to be welding. It took awhile but I think I got a system going.
By the way so far the only lead I have found was installed by some old time body man who could not straighten out the rear corner because of the double panels. No factory lead has showed up anyplace yet. I am going to cut out part of the inner panel and staighten out the panels. About the only rust on this truck seems to be where ever they did not paint it at the factory.
I plan om taking out the rivets on the front fenders ,painting under the brackets and plates and then reassembling them with panel adhesive and some new rivets (if I can find them ) If no rivets are available I will use some carriage bolts and lock nuts.
How did you know that I need to reskin my glove box ? Some jerk bent it up prying off the original data plates .
thanks for the help
Bruce
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